


Cold

by catherinelynnelove



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Child Abuse, F/M, Found Family, Gen, Hard of Hearing Keith (Voltron), Orphan Keith (Voltron)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-26 17:53:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21712519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catherinelynnelove/pseuds/catherinelynnelove
Summary: The first time Lance meets Keith, he gets punched in the face.It’s his own fault, really. Everyone knows not to approach Keith Kogane when he’s pissed off. Lance decides to approach Keith when he’s in the middle of a fight, which is, in hindsight, a fucking stupid decision. Some time after the fact, however, he finds he doesn’t regret it.M for Strong Language, Graphic Violence & Depictions of Abuse, Major Character Death, & Triggering Content
Comments: 10
Kudos: 41
Collections: AREA 69 WRITES SHIT, VLD Angst Bang 2019





	Cold

**Author's Note:**

> _“I never thought a hero would ever come my way,”_
> 
> A warning to my readers: the ending scene of this fic might be very triggering for some people, and I don’t want to put it in here because I don’t want to spoil it. If some kinds of graphic death and violence is an issue for you, please scroll down and read the end notes! I’ll put it in the very bottom, just in case- I don’t want to make anyone uncomfortable when they weren’t expecting such triggering content.

The first time Lance meets Keith, he gets punched in the face.

It’s his own fault, really. Everyone knows not to approach Keith Kogane when he’s pissed off. Lance decides to approach Keith when he’s in the middle of a fight, which is, in hindsight, a fucking stupid decision. 

(Some time after the fact, however, he finds he doesn’t regret it.)

He makes the dumbass decision halfway through the second semester of eighth grade, when he really should be in the library studying for final exams instead of in the school courtyard, flirting with Nyma Johnson while Pidge and Hunk laugh at him from a bench ten feet away. It’s blessedly beautiful out, just enough clouds for it to not be sweltering, but still few enough for the sun to shine down and brighten up the grey of the school.

Lance is in the middle of a slowly ebbing conversation when a sudden ruckus from the other end of the courtyard catches his attention. Loud shouting and sounds of a scuffle are audible in the distance and Lance excuses himself to see what the fuss is about. By the time he reaches the source of the noise, a crowd has gathered, students cheering on two teens pushing and shoving at each other like fighters in the center of a ring.

Lance immediately recognizes one of them as Keith Kogane. How could he not, when the guy’s practically the school prodigy? It takes him another few moments to recognize the smaller kid as a sixth grader who rides his bus and is generally quite obnoxious.

And, of course, Lance’s first instinct is to attempt to dispel the fight. On his own. A fight between Keith Kogane and someone who very obviously does not regret pissing him off.

As previously said: a fucking stupid decision.

“Hey, guys, I know you’re both mad but if Iverson catches you fighting you’ll probably get in-”

Before Lance can finish his sentence, Keith’s violet gaze is turned on him, and pain blossoms in his cheek as he gets caught up in a fight he really shouldn’t have had anything to do with. Hunk and Pidge are shouting in the distance as Lance stumbles backward from the force of the hit, his mouth tasting of iron and aching terribly when he lifts his hand to the swollen area. He glances at Keith and immediately wishes he hadn’t. The guy looks absolutely _livid_.

More shouting ensues and Lance tunes it all out, returning to Hunk and Pidge and letting his two friends fuss over him. The crowd suddenly disperses and Iverson’s voice cuts through the chaos in the courtyard screaming ‘Kogane’ at the top of his lungs. Lance looks past Hunk inspecting his cheek to see Iverson grabbing Keith by the arm, shouting at him about the school rules and how many infractions he already has.

Iverson stops his lecture to drag Keith back into the building, and for a split second, Keith’s gaze meets Lance’s once again. This time, Keith almost looks apologetic.

  
  
  
  


News of Keith’s expulsion is the first thing he hears at school the next morning, and Lance doesn’t see Keith again, nor does he expect to. Rumours about the raven-haired prodigy spread and quickly fade away. People stop talking about him as if they’re both terrified and vaguely awed by him. Keith disappears from everyone’s list of conversation starters, and Lance can’t help but wonder if there was anyone in their school who actually knew him beyond his reputation.

  
  
  
  


Lance is undeniably excited for his first day of high school. He has his favorite sandwich tucked away in his bag, he’s wearing his favorite outfit, he’s sitting on the bus next to his favorite friend. Lance doesn’t think the start of his day could possibly get any better.He also doesn’t think the start of his day could get any worse, which is a mistake on his part.

The first thing Lance notices as he’s stepping off the bus is Keith’s form in the parking lot, next to a bright red bmx bike with chipped paint and a fraying seat. His hair is longer, though not by much, and Lance grudgingly admits that the mullet doesn’t look terrible on him. Keith is taller too - again, not by much - and Lance offhandedly wonders if anything else about him has changed.

(The angry curse Keith spits out when someone bumps into him doesn’t encourage that particular train of thought.)

“Lance? What’re you glaring at?” Hunk asks.

“Keith Kogane.” Lance replies, the distaste spilling out before he can pretend it’s not there.

Hunk follows his line of sight and quirks his brow. “Isn’t that the guy who punched you last year?” He says dismissively. Lance shoots him an incredulous look. “Hey, man, you got in the middle of that fight all on your own, even though you knew his reputation. That hit was just a side effect.”

“I kept biting my cheek for a week because it was all swollen!”

“Yeah, well, maybe you should learn not to butt into people’s business.”

“Says you, Mister I’m-Going-To-Pry-Into-Your-Love-Life-Until-I-Ruin-Your-Chances-At-Romance!”

“Again, totally your fault,” Hunk counters matter-of-factly. “You’re the one who blatantly insulted Rolo in front of Nyma when he just so happened to be her best friend.”

Lance frowns and crosses his arms over his chest indignantly, knowing Hunk is right. Of course Hunk is right. Hunk is _always_ right. “Yeah, well, you’re not the one who got punched in the face for trying to keep a sixth grader from getting pummeled. Or who got slapped by the girl you like.”

Following Hunk through the front doors of the school, Lance watches Keith fade into the crowd of students and instead turns his attention toward a familiar length of blonde hair. Nyma is standing only ten or so feet away, right next to Rolo, smiling her perfect smile and laughing her perfect laugh. Lance pointedly doesn’t acknowledge their linked hands, or the way Rolo leans over to kiss Nyma on the cheek. Hunk makes a noise of understanding and leads him further down the hall.

Pidge is leaning against a pillar where the hall opens up into the cafeteria, scrolling through her phone and glaring down at whatever she’s looking at. When Lance and Hunk call out to her, she tucks her phone into her pocket and waves back with a half-smile, grey bags under her eyes.

“God Pidge, did you even sleep last night? You look like hell.” Lance says.

Pidge frowns. “Gee, thanks Mr. Casanova. You sure know how to make a girl feel beautiful,” She deadpans, shoving Lance with her shoulder. “And no, I didn’t. I was up late playing Overwatch with Matt.”

The three of them maneuver through the hall and plop down at an empty table in the cafeteria to compare their schedules, chatting about Overwatch and Pidge’s brother, Matt. Lance and Pidge both silently mourn the fact they don’t have any classes together. He and Hunk have three of the same classes though, which is a good thing. They continue their conversation about video games until Pidge brings up a sore (not really) subject.

“Hey, did you guys know Keith goes here too? I saw him walk by right before you guys showed up.”

Lance groans in loathing, and Hunk answers for him. “Yeah, we saw him when we got off the bus. Lance isn’t too happy about it, but it’s not like we have to hang out with him or anything.”

“But he goes here! Which means we could end up in the same classes!” Lance complains. “If I have to relive the trauma of being punched in the face by him every day, I’ll be miserable!”

“Stop being so dramatic, you big pissbaby. It’s your fault he hit you anyway, you’re the one who butted into his fight.” Pidge points out. 

“I have the worst friends! Neither of you are supporting my perspective on this!”

“That’s because your perspective is flawed.”

Lance shoots Pidge and Hunk equal looks of ‘I-Can’t-Believe-I-Trusted-You’ and they both firmly ignore him. Before he can make a bigger show of pouting, the bell rings overhead, and the three of them are standing to find their respective classes. Pidge grumbles incoherently as she heads off to the gym and Lance wishes her the best of luck, hoping and praying none of the staff will give her any trouble concerning the locker rooms. He and Hunk split ways in the hall between the science and mathematics buildings, Lance not quite appreciating the fact that he has maths class first thing in the morning. Can’t be worse than having P.E. first, though, he thinks.

His immediate thought when he walks through the door of his new maths class is “Oh God, it actually _can_ be worse,” because there in the middle row, looking ridiculously content sitting in a maths classroom, is Keith Kogane, eyes distant as he stares at the whiteboard at the front of the room. Lance notes that he has earbuds in, and silently hopes Keith gets busted by the teacher. Moving to take a seat as far away from Keith as possible, Lance looks up at the whiteboard and scowls at the sloppily-drawn seating chart in one corner.

His morning only seems to get worse when Lance walks up to the seating chart and realizes he has to sit right next to Keith. Apparently there isn’t anyone with an “L” surname in this class.

Glaring at the whiteboard for far longer than is strictly necessary, Lance turns and maneuvers through the rows of desks and drops his bag onto the one to Keith’s right with a loud thump that makes the raven-haired boy jump, much to Lance’s amusement. Keith shoots him a glare and folds his arms over the table, resting his head on them with a sigh. Lance’s victory smirk melts to a frown. Did Keith not remember him? There wasn’t even a hint of recognition in that glare; what if Keith simply didn’t know him? Lance huffs and sits down, admittedly disappointed.

A couple minutes later, the second bell rings to announce the end of the passing period, and the teacher stands from her desk to introduce herself. Lance turns to see if Keith is paying attention (he’s wearing earbuds, so clearly he’s the type who doesn’t care about class, Lance thinks) and realizes that his earbuds aren’t actually earbuds; they’re simply aux cords plugged into hearing aids in both of Keith’s ears.

Lance wonders how he never previously noticed Keith wore hearing aids.

He also wonders how the whole ‘aux cord turns hearing aids into earbuds’ thing works, but that question is dissipated by Keith catching him staring and raising an eyebrow. Lance quickly looks away and focuses his gaze on the teacher, who starts to explain the class rubric. Lance can feel Keith’s eyes on him for another few seconds, but he doesn’t look back, and when he glances at Keith again in the middle of class, he’s dutifully taking notes as if nothing had happened.

Lance tunes out most of first period, simply due to the fact that the teacher handed out a syllabus at the start of class that specifies everything she’s saying to them in perfect detail, word for word, so it’s pretty redundant to listen to her say it all over again. Lance finds himself watching Keith out of the corner of his eye. As soon as the teacher had started talking nearly half an hour ago, he’d produced a couple of barrettes from nowhere and pinned his hair back so it wouldn’t fall in front of his hearing aids, and Lance can’t stop his brain from telling him it’s cute _._

The entire time the teacher drones on about classroom etiquette, Keith is jotting down everything she says in his notebook, writing so fast Lance can hear his pencil scraping over the page, and a subtle glance at Keith’s notebook tells him it’s likely that Keith is the only person who will ever be able to actually read his notes. It’s weird for Lance to see Keith so focused and peaceful - the only emotion he’s ever seen on the guy is anger; intense, furious anger.

But here, in a _maths class_ of all places, Keith looks strangely calm. There’s no hint of frustration in his face and his eyes only ever leave the front of the room when he’s pausing to take notes.

The bell is ringing before Lance even notices the time flying by, and he quickly looks away from Keith in an attempt to keep his absent staring a secret. He listens to Keith shuffle about beside him as they both put away their things, and when Lance looks up again, Keith is across the room and walking out the door. Lance waits a good long moment before following, meeting Hunk in the hallway outside and making no mention of Keith as he’s swept up in conversation.

He doesn’t see Keith again that day. When Lance gets home that night and his mother asks how his first day of high school was, his response is: “It was a very enlightening experience.”

  
  
  
  


Lance continues to silently observe Keith throughout first period maths. He doesn’t get to do so as fervently as he had the first day of school, since after the introductions of the first day, they’re immediately thrown into actual classwork and assignments. Lance doesn’t enjoy maths - he doesn’t hate it, of course; he understands the practical nature of everything and doesn’t have enough of an issue with the content to really dislike it at all - but he finds himself actually looking forward to it every day, simply because of all the things he notices about Keith.

He learns that all of Keith’s notebooks are space-themed, with planets and nebulas on the fronts of each one. He learns that Keith’s favorite pencil is a red mechanical one with rubber grips; he once watched Keith miss a good two minutes of the lecture in favor of rooting through his bag in search of said pencil when there were two other, perfectly usable pencils already on his desk. He learns that Keith takes his hearing aids out when the class gets too loud during work time.

Lance watches Keith out of the corner of his eye whenever the teacher pauses her chatter, and Keith never catches him staring, always absorbed in the lecture with tunnel-vision focus Lance is somewhat jealous of. The constant observation causes him to have a little more homework to do after school, but he can’t bring himself to break the habit. He’s too curious about Keith, about how this ragged teen who once showed such livid anger manages to look so _soft_.

A month has passed since the start of high school when Lance speaks to Keith for the first time.

He’s walking out of his American History classroom during lunch, having forgotten his jacket on the back of his chair earlier in the day and gone back to fetch it. The classroom is in a short hall that is almost impossible to find without some kind of help unless you’ve been there before, and Lance’s heart jumps into his throat when he trips over a pair of legs sticking out from next to the trash can in the walkway. He catches himself and turns to find Keith sitting on the floor up against the ugly brown brick wall, knees now pulled to his chest as he stares back at Lance.

“Keith?!” Lance says, visibly surprised. Keith’s brow furrows. “What are you doing here?!”

“Um...eating lunch?” Keith deadpans, gesturing to the sandwich in his hands.

“Yeah, but why are you eating lunch way out here? Wouldn’t it be better to eat in the cafeteria? This hallway isn’t even indoors, you’ve gotta be freezing your ass off.”

Keith simply shrugs. “Cafeteria’s too crowded. And noisy..”

Lance nods in understanding, even though he can’t really relate to Keith’s point. He’s always felt a little at home in chaos - it’s simply a side effect of growing up in a busy household.

“You sit next to me in maths, right?” Keith asks. Lance nods. “And you’re the kid I punched last year too, aren’t you?”

Lance is shocked to hear him say that, and it must show on his face, because Keith shrinks a little smaller and turns his violet eyes to the floor, and Lance can’t help but notice the pink flush that reaches up to the tips of his ears.

“I’m sorry about that, by the way. I didn’t mean to hit you, especially not as hard as I did. I thought you were one of that kid’s friends, joining the fight to back him up. I acted on reflex.”

“Oh.” Is all Lance can say, and after a few seconds of silence, he pulls his jacket on against the cold and takes a seat on the cement next to Keith, far enough away so they aren't touching but close enough that he won’t have to talk too loud to be heard. 

“Why were you fighting him, anyway? He was a sixth grader, what did he do to piss you off so bad?” He asks.

Keith looks up at him and then away, as if pondering his answer. “...he stole something that was really important to me. And then threatened to give it to the Principal and get me expelled.”

“Whoa...wait, what the heck did you have that could get you expelled??”

Again, Keith hesitates, and Lance finds a pair of violet eyes on him once again, studying him, as if Keith is trying to gauge whether or not he can trust Lance with whatever the answer is. Lance can’t blame him for it. After the fight last year, it’s a totally plausible theory that Lance would take Keith’s answer as blackmail to get him in trouble- revenge for getting punched in the face.

“...a knife,” Keith says after a long moment. “It used to belong to my parents. That kid stole it out of my bag during P.E. and threatened to take it to Iverson so I’d get expelled from the school. That wasn’t the actual reason I got expelled though, ironically enough.”

Lance doesn’t say anything, obviously waiting for an explanation, and Keith’s face tilts up into a smile that makes Lance think his assumption that Keith was just a rude fuck is very wrong.

“I punched Iverson in the face.”

“You punched Iverson?!” Lance blurts, grinning from ear to ear. “Dude! That guy was an asshole! Man, sucks that you got expelled for it though, with how rude he was to all his students.”

“Yeah. He was going off about how I was supposed to be a good example, spewing shit about how I’m a prodigy or whatever and shouldn’t be getting into fights and ruining my image. Made it seem like my image being ruined somehow ruined the school’s image too,” Keith explains. “They weren’t going to even suspend me for the knife thing, but then Iverson said it was stupid that I cared so much about a gift from two people I never even got to meet. And I fucking decked him.”

“And that’s why you got expelled. For decking Iverson.”

Keith nods, and Lance is in awe. He can’t say he wouldn’t expect such a thing from Keith - after all, he _is_ known for being prone to fighting - but to punch _Iverson_ , the meanest adult Lance has ever laid eyes on, is something he considers to be incredibly admirable despite the fact he definitely doesn’t condone violence. Keith seems to loosen up a little at the fact that he’s smiling, which Lance watches with keen eyes; the way his knees drift farther from his chest, the way his head lifts up from where his shoulders were stooped low.

Lance’s cell phone vibrates in his pocket, startling them both, and he pulls it out to find a couple texts from Pidge asking him where he is. He’d completely forgotten about his normal lunch plans in the unexpected conversation with Keith. He texts her back saying he’ll be right there.

“My friends are waiting for me, so I gotta go,” Lance says, standing and brushing dirt off the back of his jeans. “If you want, you can come eat with us. We eat in the courtyard, so it’s not loud. And it’ll just be me, Hunk, and Pidge. They’re both nice, I’m sure they’d like you.”

Keith looks at him with wide eyes, and Lance offhandedly realizes that this is the first time he’s ever actually spoken to Keith. He also remembers the fact that Keith did, in fact, punch him in the face last year, and while he knows Hunk and Pidge don’t hold a grudge over that, Keith doesn’t. Lance almost expects Keith to decline his offer and never talk to him again.

But then Keith smiles, a small, soft smile, and gathers his things. “Sure, I’d like that.”

  
  
  
  


Keith easily becomes a natural part of their group. He’s awkward that first day, not knowing how to act or what to say, but he quickly warms up to Hunk and Pidge, and after about two weeks it’s hard to imagine what their group would be like _without_ Keith.

Lance doesn’t stop his observations. His eyes are constantly on Keith, taking in everything about him. He learns that Keith loves everything there is to love about space and its infinite possibilities. He learns that Keith is a good artist, and prefers drawing nature and space to anything else, but can still do amazingly realistic portraits. He learns that Keith has lived with his current foster family since he was twelve, and that this is the longest he’s stayed in one place in his entire life.

He learns that Keith was born with good hearing, but a degenerative disease caused his ears to slowly become less functional, and now he can’t hear anything without hearing aids. He learns that said degenerative disease could one day cause Keith to be completely deaf.

With Keith opening up to them and showing his true colors more and more, Lance comes to see that he really isn’t a violent person at all. When they hear stories of Keith’s fights from his point of view, they learn that most of the time, the other person was goading him or did something cruel that most definitely deserved a good hit. They learn that Keith sometimes has trouble controlling his emotions, and that when he gets angry or upset, it almost always ends badly. They learn that Keith doesn’t feel guilty for any of his outbursts, save one: the one with Lance.

That in itself is gives Lance goosebumps, and when Keith first tells them, he swears they’re both red in the face. Keith says he feels guilty for hitting Lance when he was just trying to help.

Of course, Lance forgives him - he already has, in _his_ mind at least. Keith starts to adjust his old routes through the school so he can join the group on their way to class, suddenly appearing at Lance’s side from seemingly nowhere so they can walk to lunch together. And because he’s with their group most of the time, he gets halfway through the school year without a single fight.

  
  
  
  


The first time Lance learns anything substantial about Keith’s home life, he doesn’t even realize it.

It’s raining out - not the gentle, peaceful kind of rain, but the kind of rain that makes your skin ache and soaks you to the bone. The four of them made the regrettable decision to walk to the arcade instead of riding the bus straight home after school, and they spend a good twenty minutes racing through the downpour before they finally make it to Pidge’s house. 

Colleen Holt offers to dry everyone’s clothes and make them all hot chocolate, and offers to drive Lance, Hunk, and Keith home afterwards. Keith gently denies a ride home, even though Colleen insists that cycling home in the rain is a terrible idea, but then the storm slows into a sprinkle, so she stops pushing. Lance and Hunk have spent enough nights in the Holt household to have clothes there, and Pidge offers up some of her brother’s old clothes for Keith to wear.

Lance is mostly dry, snug and warm in a pair of blue lion-themed pajamas Pidge says are tacky when Colleen hands him some black plaid pants and a bulky maroon sweater that looks like it’s from the early 80s to give to Keith. He finds Keith in the upstairs bathroom, and when he pushes open the door that isn’t all the way closed, he catches Keith with his shirt halfway off, his back exposed and showcasing several colorful bruises painted along his spine.

Lance expects Keith to hide himself, and he’s right, as Keith whirls around and turns toward him, back now hidden against the wall. Lance turns his gaze to the floor and sets the stack of clothes on the bathroom counter. “Uh, Colleen wanted me to bring these to you...sorry for not asking if I could come in, that was bad manners. I’m just gonna…go. Now.” 

With that, Lance retreats out the door and pulls it shut, pointedly avoiding Keith’s gaze. However, the image of Keith’s violet eyes wide in shock stays in his head long after he’s back downstairs.

They don’t talk about that incident at all that night. Keith comes into the living room with his hair curtaining his face and takes a seat on the floor in front of the couch, right in front of where Lance is sitting cross-legged next to Hunk. He counts this as him being forgiven, and when their clothes are done drying and Colleen is piling everyone into the Holt family stationwagon, Lance’s eyes stay on Keith’s form until the car is too far away for him to see that mop of black hair.

Over the next few weeks, Lance’s gaze is on Keith more than ever before, and he starts to see ticks in his friend that he’d not quite seen for what they were previously. He catches on to the way Keith sits, arms tucked close to his body, back slightly hunched, as if he’s trying to occupy as little space as possible. He watches the way Keith is always hyper aware of his surroundings, how his gaze lingers on anyone who walks by their lunch spot, how he flinches whenever someone is too loud or when someone gets too close. How he never sits with his back to anyone, always sitting against a wall or tree or in a spot where he can see the entire courtyard.

Lance notices how he’s never seen Keith without his signature red hoodie on, sleeves all the way down and black fingerless gloves covering his hands. He notices how Keith’s hair is always left to curl around his neck and most of his face. He doesn’t have the same P.E. class as Keith, but according to Hunk, who does, Keith never changes into his uniform in front of others.

While Lance has no concrete evidence to back up his theory that Keith is being abused at home, the pieces of Keith’s behavior that suggest it are overwhelming.

One day, after at least two weeks of theorizing, Lance finds himself on the complete wrong side of town from where his house is. He’d taken a few wrong turns walking home from the arcade he was at with Pidge and Hunk - from whom he’d turned down rides, since Hunk and his mom weren’t going straight home and his house is further away than the Holts’ - and is suddenly in a neighborhood he’s never actually been in before except for on the school bus, and even then, he’s always so engrossed in conversing with Hunk he never really notices the scenery change.

The houses here are small, _tiny_ , even, and all of them are in varying states of disrepair: yards of dead grass full of weeds and litter. Lance can’t help but feel rather uncomfortable in such an environment, and he’s on the verge of calling his mom to come pick him up when shouting from one of the houses catches his attention. 

It’s incredibly noisy, even though it’s at least two houses down from where Lance is standing. He can make out that the argument is centered around money, though he can’t tell what the two sides are, or distinguish between who’s yelling what. But then the shouting increases to full screeching and a door is thrown open with a crash that makes him think the door might have actually been broken, and a short frame stumbles out, a fist from inside the doorway connecting with their face and then pulling the door shut again.

It isn’t until the person is out in the yard that Lance recognizes them. It’s Keith, and the fact that his theory is suddenly being proven true makes his heart wrench in his chest.

Lance waits until Keith is collapsing onto the curb before he walks another two house’s distance so he’s at the edge of Keith’s brown lawn. Keith looks up and sees him before he can speak, and the look of pure shock mirrors the expression he was wearing that day so long ago when Lance caught him by surprise in Pidge’s bathroom. _It’s a bookend_ , he thinks to himself; a moment in the beginning of a realization that happens later on, exactly the same.

“Lance?” Keith says, words quiet and stunned-sounding. 

Lance nods with an awkward half-smile and twiddles his thumbs in front of him, taking a few more small steps toward Keith. “Hey.”

As he steps closer, Lance can see Keith’s condition more clearly in the fading light. The street lamps flicker on just as he stops about two feet away from his friend, and suddenly he sees the way Keith’s ear is split open, blood trailing down the side of Keith’s face.

“God, Keith.” He says, taking a seat next to Keith on the curb, glancing back at the house with an ache in his stomach. 

Lance pulls his sleeve over his hand and inches toward the wound. Keith starts, leaning away, and Lance pauses. Their gazes meet and Lance feels his stomach sinking further when he can only interpret the expression on Keith’s face as fear. But then Keith’s features soften, and he lets Lance use his sleeve to wipe off the blood trailing down the side of his face. There’s only the sound of their own breathing and a dog barking somewhere in the distance, and Lance barely registers that he now has Keith’s blood all over the sleeve of his favorite jacket.

When the blood is mostly gone or dried onto skin, Lance carefully dislodges Keith’s hearing aid from his ear. It’s broken, a long crack going down the entirety of the speaker and exposing the wires within. Lance gives it to Keith, who looks down at it with a quiet huff. 

“This isn’t the first time this has happened, is it.” Lance says, more a statement than a question.

“...no,” Keith says. “But it _is_ the first time he’s broken one of my hearing aids. Usually he avoids hitting near them, since they’re so expensive.”

“Why haven’t you told anyone? You could get him arrested. A guardian shouldn’t act like that.” 

“I know. I only live with him because he’s the only person in the area who could take me when I got kicked out of my previous foster home a while ago,” Keith explains, curling his fist around the hearing aid and pulling his knees to his chest. “And...there are a couple of reasons why I haven’t told anyone. Mostly because I don’t want to have to leave this neighborhood.”

Lance waits for Keith to continue, and he does.

“When I was younger, I had a foster brother, Shiro. We lived here together. We were really close, or...so I thought, at least. When he turned eighteen, he got kicked out and disappeared. I thought he would come back for me, even just to visit, but...he never did. I don’t think he would just _leave_ , so I chose to stay here in case he ever comes back. He won’t be able to find me if I get sent to some other house in some other town.”

“Keith-”

“That’s not the only reason, though,” Keith interrupts him. “I was planning on running away, when I first started high school. He started treating me worse because he thinks I’m more of man now, since I’m older, so I should be able to take it. But then you spoke to me that one day, in the hall. And you invited me to sit with you and Pidge and Hunk, and you didn’t make it a one-time thing, either. You let me keep coming back, day after day.” 

Keith leans into Lance, and Lance lets him. “Did you know that you guys are the only friends I’ve ever had in my whole life, aside from Shiro?” 

“No, I didn’t know that.” Lance whispers. 

Keith doesn’t seem to have anything else to say, and Lance doesn’t know what else he _can_ say, so they sit there in silence until Lance’s mom calls, demanding to know where he is. He explains that he got lost and that he stumbled across a friend’s house, and that he really doesn’t know where the hell he is. Keith supplies his home address and Lance’s mom says she’s on her way there. Silence falls once again when Lance hangs up.

“I should go back inside before your mom gets here.” Keith says after a moment.

“Keith, are you kidding?” Lance gapes. “You shouldn’t go back in there, _period_!”

“It’ll only be worse if I stay out overnight. And I don’t want to be a burden, not on you or your family or anyone else. I’ll be fine, Lance.”

Lance wants to argue that Keith’s definition of the word ‘fine’ has to be drastically skewed for it to apply right now, but he has a feeling it’ll only cause problems, so he says nothing. Keith stands, and Lance does the same, and before Lance can do so much as wipe the miniscule pieces of gravel off his jeans, Keith is hugging him and burying his face in the crook of his neck, carefully aiming his wounded ear away from Lance’s jacket to avoid getting any more blood on it. 

It’s Lance’s turn to be surprised - he’s never seen Keith hug anyone. Physical touch has been a slow thing for Keith. Pidge had to teach him what a fist-bump was. Yet, here he is, arms wrapped around Lance’s torso, fingers clinging to the fabric of his jacket as if Keith doesn’t want to leave him after all.

But then Keith is pulling away, and he says a quiet “seeya” before disappearing inside his house.

Lance almost expects the yelling to pick up again, but it doesn’t, and only a few minutes pass before he hears his mom’s voice calling for him from her car a house over. He climbs into the passenger seat and apologizes for not having called earlier, and he vaguely explains that he got so caught up in talking to Keith that he didn’t notice the time passing by. It isn’t a lie - Lance doubts he’d ever be capable of lying to his mom - but it isn’t the whole truth, and while he wants to tell _someone_ about what’s happening to Keith, it’s not his truth to tell.

And so he keeps it in, only half-listening as his mother recounts her day and blatantly ignoring his siblings as they start rambling about the chaos of life when he gets home. He sits through dinner without adding much to the conversation, and if anyone notices, they don’t say anything about it. His older sister gives him a dirty look when he misses her question about whether he’ll be bringing Pidge and Hunk over anytime soon, and he slips into his room before she can complain.

When Lance gets to school the next day, he pretends not to notice the lie in Keith’s story that the now-missing hearing aid fell out and got stepped on the day before.

  
  
  
  


A week later, Keith comes to school with a black eye and cut lip and a wrist that twitches whenever he tries to use it - the only injuries Lance has ever noticed outright, though he wonders if maybe he only noticed because he _knows_ \- and Lance decides he has to do _something_ , whether Keith wants him to or not. 

Lance calls Pidge and Hunk over to his house that weekend under the pretense of a dinner with his family. It starts out just like any normal dinner with them over: Hunk helps cook dinner and chats avidly with Lance’s mom in the kitchen, Pidge beats Lance’s brothers at Mario Kart and effectively distracts them from bugging everyone else, and all of Lance’s siblings talk at a mile a minute to get ‘embarrassing school stories’ about Lance from both his friends. 

After dinner, Lance swiftly ushers Pidge and Hunk up to his bedroom and blocks the door with his desk chair to make up for his door not having a lock, placing both hands on his hips and turning to his friends with what he hopes is a serious expression that doesn’t betray the worry he feels for Keith. 

“Okay, why are you looking at us like that? You look like you’re about to scold us or something.” Pidge inquires, crossing her arms over her chest and raising an eyebrow at Lance.

Lance lets the serious expression slide off his face and takes a seat in his desk chair against the door. “Um, so last week I found out where Keith lives by accident, and I kinda found out his foster dad is abusing him, and technically he never asked me not to say anything and he came to class the other day all injured and I honestly can’t ignore it now that I know, so. I want to do something, but I don’t really know what I should do, and you guys are smart so I thought you could tell me.”

“Whoa, that sounds like some pretty heavy stuff.” Hunk says, concern riddling his features.

Pidge nods and rests her chin in one hand, focusing on something across from her with pinched eyes. “We should definitely tell someone. But we shouldn’t involve the police right away, it might be too much for Keith. We should take it slow, subtle.” 

“Yeah, okay.” Lance agrees. “So who should we tell?”

“Your parents. They’re probably the best people for this. They’ll be understanding.” 

“Don’t you think Keith would be overwhelmed by my family, though?”

“Oh, definitely. You just have to be there to help him out when it gets too intense.”

Lance takes a deep breath. “Okay. Let’s do this then.”

  
  
  
  


One week later, Lance has a plan. 

His entire family ends up involved in it somehow, and Lance is grateful to have such a large family: it means he has a lot of support. Pidge and Hunk were eager to help - and their parents all agreed to help as well - and Lance has to admit that the two of them came up with most of the plan themselves. Lance just provided the most crucial part. An endgame.

The endgame? Getting Keith into a safe space: Lance’s home. 

Now, they just have to convince Keith to go along with it, without him actually knowing the plan.

Lance does his best to act like there’s nothing out of the ordinary. He doesn’t want Keith to be suspicious of anything, or worse- think Lance doesn’t like him now that he knows the truth.

He waves at Keith when he gets off the bus with Hunk. He groans when Keith reminds him they have a maths test in about fifteen minutes. He listens intently as Pidge rambles about how Matt’s supposed to be coming home next month, and that he’ll be bringing his college roommate.

When Hunk and Pidge split off to go to their own homerooms, Lance turns to Keith and begs for a run-down of the formulas they need to know for their test. He hasn’t studied; he was too caught up in planning to even remember. But he knows Keith studied. And even if he hadn’t, he knows Keith is too good at maths to not know. So he begs Keith for help. And, like the good friend he is, Keith does.

They spend the precious few minutes before the start of homeroom running through all the material they’d learned the past month, and by the time the bell rings, Lance feels at least a little bit prepared for the test.

(He still fails, which he doesn’t find out for another week, but he tried, and that’s what matters anyway, right?)

It isn’t until lunch period that their plan _really_ goes into action.

“Hey, so my brother’s birthday is today,” Lance starts - and it isn’t a lie. “and my family’s got plans to bake him a cake and set up for like, his birthday party and whatnot. He’ll be at work until like seven pm, so my mom said I could invite you guys to come help with the setup.”

“Well, you know I’m coming. My moms already told me your mama invited them to do all the food prep.” Hunk answers immediately.

“I’ll call my mom and let her know. It’s not like I have plans or anything.” Pidge says.

They all look to Keith at exactly the same time, and for a split second, Lance is worried Keith will suspect the entire conversation is scripted (which it is), but he just looks awkward and nervous.

“You won’t be a burden if you decide you join us, y’know.” Lance says.

It must be like Lance was reading Keith’s thoughts, because Keith’s ears turn pink, and he shifts a little in his chair. Pidge and Hunk nod and hum in assent to Lance’s statement, and Keith looks to be considering his options: he can accept, and hang out with his friends in their home environment for the first time since that rainy day that feels so long ago, or he can decline, which would ruin Lance’s plan completely, however unintentional.

And either Keith is finally starting to truly warm up to them, or Lance is just plain lucky, because Keith smiles - a rare, toothy, beautiful smile - and says, “Sure. Why not?”

Lance beams in return, can see Hunk and Pidge beaming as well, half out of relief their plan is working and half out of pure happiness, because Keith is coming with them, and while it isn’t a big deal, really, Lance suspects all three of them see it as some kind of milestone.

With that part of their plan sorted, normal conversation resumes, and when the bell rings, Lance, Hunk, and Pidge share a thumbs up between each other the moment Keith’s back is turned. He doesn’t seem to suspect a thing, and Lance is grateful, because the entire plan hinges on Keith staying oblivious and not getting angry at Lance for concocting the plan in the first place.

Lance tries not to think about what’ll happen once Keith inevitably realizes he’s been betrayed.

  
  
  
  


After school ends, Lance calls his mom to come pick the four of them up, because Hunk is the only one who could actually ride home with him on the bus. She’s expecting his call. True to script, he asks if she can come get them, and she asks if it’s just going to be Hunk and Pidge. Lance feels himself smiling when he says “No, Keith’s gonna be coming too. I know you wanted to meet him.” and he can imagine she’s smiling, too, because aside from Hunk and Pidge, she was the first to accept Lance’s plan, and had dove headfirst into helping with the preparations.

They chatter rather aimlessly while they wait for Lance’s mom, everyone but Keith a little bit on edge with the secrets they’re keeping, and Lance is grateful it only takes her about five minutes to arrive (he suspects she may have already been in her car, ready to go, when he called).

“You must be Keith!” She says as they all pile into the car. “Lance has been chattering on about you for a while now, I almost thought he’d abandoned Hunk and Pidge completely!” 

Lance sputters, can feel his face growing red, can feel Hunk and Pidge’s eyes on him. He turns to look out the window, because he doesn’t want to see the knowing looks they’re surely giving him. And he doesn’t want to even _imagine_ what kind of expression Keith has.

“I bet he just badmouths Keith for being better than him at everything.” Pidge says snidely.

“Hey!” Lance squawks, because he has _absolutely_ been doing that, but no one needs to know. _Especially_ not Keith himself. “He’s not better than me at e _verything_! And I don’t badmouth!”

Lance can see his mother side-eyeing him, eyebrows raised. He knows she can see straight through his horrible attempt at saving himself from embarrassment. Which is pointless, because he’s already embarrassed. And, because she’s Maria McClain, he watches her smirk and roll her eyes as she turns her gaze back on the road and continues talking like nothing’s happened.

“So, how was school, then? Anything noteworthy happen?” She asks, perfectly mundane. “How did you do on that test you forgot to study for?”

Keith is chuckling in the backseat, Lance _knows_ it, and he shoots the guy a look that he hopes conveys how utterly betrayed he feels. “Hey, I’ve been busy! Doing...stuff.” Right, because that wasn’t at all ominous. Keith just raises an eyebrow. “And besides, Keith helped me study! This morning. Before the test. That counts!” 

He doesn't sound at all convincing, but everyone is entertained to some degree, and while Lance kind of wants to point out how they’re all entertained at his expense, it’s nice to see a smile on their faces. With all the planning they’ve been doing and the nature of the situation at hand, it’s been a few days since Lance has seen Hunk’s eyes crinkle around the edges or heard Pidge’s full belly chortle. And Keith...well, he’s chuckling, and that’s something Lance recognizes as _rare_.

The ride from Alternia High School to the McClain residence is spent in constant chatter. Lance steers the conversation away from himself and his mistakes, and they get talking about cakes and party decorations and what kind of music should be played and _oh yeah_ , Andi doesn’t even _like_ cake, so what on Earth are they gonna do now? By the time they pull up to the quaint grey and white house Lance has known all his life, Hunk and Maria have narrowed down a list of four food choices to prepare in place of cake, and Pidge is playing space trivia with Keith in the back.

Toni and Camilla’s matching Frozen bikes are toppled over on opposite sides of the front lawn and on a normal day Lance would have been wondering who was watching them if they weren’t in the car with his mother, their full-time babysitter. But this _isn’t_ a normal day. 

“Alright kids, let’s get to work!” Maria says, turning to wink at everyone before climbing out of the car, waving her hands in an encouraging gesture Lance immediately interprets as “hurry up.” His friends also grasp the message and soon they’re all clambering up the steps onto the front porch of the McClain residence. Maria kicks a basketball out of the way of the door and opens it with one hand while texting with the other, and, once inside, is nearly bowled over by small children.

“Tio Hunk, tio Hunk!” Toni and Camilla, their words overlapping as they interrupt each other and compete over who can manage to get to Hunk first. 

Hunk, to his credit, has mastered the role of ‘doting uncle’ and scoops them both up at the same time, one in each arm, and lets them throw their arms around his neck and pepper his cheeks with kisses. Pidge snickers into her hand, and Lance can see Keith trying not to laugh, too.

Lance puts on a fake pout and crosses his arms over his chest. “Hey hey hey, since when is _Hunk_ the favorite uncle?”

“Since _always_!” Camilla says with a smile, giggling even more when Lance scowls.

“Oh, come on,” Pidge pats him on the back. “You can pout and complain over being abandoned later. We have a birthday party to set up, remember?”

Nodding, Lance lets Pidge wrap one hand around his arm and her other around Keith’s, and pull them both after Maria, who has disappeared into the kitchen. There are three other adults in the kitchen already - Lance’s father, who appears to be rummaging through kitchen drawers; and Hunk’s moms, who are greeting Maria with kisses on the cheek and both seem to be holding an assortment of dishware. His sister Melissa is standing on a step-stool in the living room, holding a roll of red paper streamers and looking incredibly bored. Half the roll is already taped up on the wall and Lance wonders why the hell she isn’t taping the rest of it up instead of standing there.

“Did you find any tape yet, dad?” She calls across the room, sounding annoyed.

“Not yet, just be patient! Why do we have so much _junk_ in these drawers?!” John McClain calls back, sounding equally as annoyed..

Ah, that makes sense.

“You should have told me we needed tape earlier, I could’ve grabbed some on my way home!” Maria says. Lance watches her cross her arms and frown disappointedly at his father.

It’s quite funny, actually, how easily she can throw even her own husband into instant regret.

“I didn’t know we were out of tape in the whole house! I could have sworn we had more in one of these drawers, but we have so much random crud in them that even if we _do_ have more, I don’t think I’d be able to find any if I looked around for ten thousand years!”

“Still, I think tape is a pretty important thing for a birthday party, don’t you agree?”

“Are they fighting?” Pidge asks quietly, leaning close to Lance’s ear, as if trying to be discreet. “I thought it was impossible for your parents to fight.”

Lance laughs a little to himself. “Oh, trust me, they fight sometimes, and this is _not_ it.”

John and Maria are still bickering over the obvious importance of tape in any kind of situation that involves decorating, and Hunk bypasses all of it to offer his personal tape roll to Melissa, who looks like she’s about ready to keel over from holding her arm up so long. She smiles gratefully and continues hanging the length of streamers, carefully climbing down the step ladder to move it a few feet over before climbing back up to curl and hang more. It looks amazing, Lance thinks.

“Tio Lance, whos’ that?” Camilla says, tugging on Lance’s sleeve and pointing at Keith. 

“That’s Keith,” Lance answers with a smile. “He’s my friend, like Hunk and Pidge. And I think,” Lance leans in close to Camilla’s ear, Toni leaning in to eavesdrop. “He could use some hugs.”

Toni and Camilla nod very seriously, turning toward Keith with a synchronized rhythm that could actually be considered quite creepy, like they’re the twins from The Shining or some shit. Keith, who has clearly been watching the conversation - most likely because it was about him - has a very quizzical expression on his face and Lance puts on his best evil grin as he watches Toni and Camilla practically barrel into Keith’s legs, wrapping their arms around him as best they can.

Pidge full-out belly laughs at how completely out of his league Keith looks, hands hovering above Camilla and Toni’s heads like he’s not sure if he’s allowed to hug them back, but then they’re giggling and he smiles, genuinely smiles, and his gloved hands rest on their shoulders as they rub their noses on his calves. Lance doesn’t mention that they might be wiping off actual snot.

“You’re tio Keith now!” Toni tells Keith, clearly not willing to accept rejection. “Come help us with our project! It’s the most important project of the whole party, mama said!”

“The most important? What is it?” Keith questions.

“Decorations! The plate ones!” Camilla yells in Keith’s ear. “We have to make ‘em ‘cause mama said a party has to have plate pictures! The best ones!” 

“From the best artists, mama said!” Toni agrees, beaming.

“Wow,” Keith says, crouching to Toni and Camilla’s height. “That really is the most important.”

That feedback seems to be the final building block in Toni and Camilla’s easy love of Keith, since as soon as they hear him reiterating how important their job is, they each grab one of his arms and almost make him fall over in their haste to drag him over to what Lance assumes is their designated “decorating area” in a corner of the living room. They spout out questions on if Keith is a good artist and what kinds of things he can draw, and Lance finds himself simply waving the three of them off when Keith looks back at him and Pidge, as if asking what to do.

“Do you think we should save him? I doubt they’re gonna give him back unless you go tell them he has a different job to do.” Pidge asks.

“Nah,” Lance says. “This’ll keep him busy so we can talk to mama and the others.”

“Fair enough.”

  
  
  
  


While Keith is occupied with drawing on the paper plates Toni and Camilla hand him - turns out he’s a really good artist, who knew? - Lance drifts from person to person in the most natural ways he can, making sure everyone knows what’s going on with Keith. He takes Melissa’s place hanging the streamers when she complains about her arm being sore. He relieves his father of the search for tape by telling him Hunk had some, because apparently no one had done that yet. He hunts down and cleans some dishes Lily and Sunny Garrett needed but couldn’t find.

He, Hunk and Pidge drift past each other while helping prepare and trade information, some of it useful - like Pidge’s discovery that Andi will be home an hour early because of an unexpected hour change due to the time of year - and some of it not - like Hunk’s unnecessary comment on how Lance keeps glancing at Keith and is eventually gonna give them away. Which actually is helpful, now that he thinks about it, but the smirk and eyebrow wiggle Hunk gives him _really isn’t_.

When the brunt of the preparations are done, Lance breaks away from setting the table to grab the paper plate decorations Toni, Camilla, and Keith were meant to be making. He finds his niece and nephew practically laying on top of Keith, whose face is almost obscured by carpet as he valiantly tries to continue drawing what looks to be Camilla in a princess dress while the two kids are bouncing up and down on his back, clearly having gotten bored with coloring.

Or maybe less bored with coloring, and more intrigued by Keith. Lance doesn’t know which.

Keith looks up when Lance approaches, and Lance effortlessly scoops Toni off Keith’s back. Toni protests with an obnoxious whine but doesn’t make any attempts to get up when Lance sits cross-legged on the carpet and plops the boy down in his lap. Camilla stops bouncing and Lance is pretty sure he hears Keith heave a sigh of relief, but he doesn’t mention it.

“How are the decorations going, kids?” He asks, ruffling Toni’s hair. 

“Uber good!” “Good!” Toni and Camilla say, their sentences overlapping. “Keith is uber good at drawing! Just like us!” Camilla continues. 

“Uber good? Where did you learn that?” Lance questions.

“Lourdes!” 

“Why am I not surprised?”

“Is Lourdes your other sister?” Keith asks, eyes still on his paper plate drawing. “You’ve never talked about her before, just Melissa.”

“Yeah, she’s the middle sister. Melissa’s the oldest, then Andi, Lourdes, me, and then these two little pains in the butt.” Lance explains, ignoring Toni and Camilla’s whining about being insulted.

“So you’re technically the baby of the family, then.”

Keith still doesn’t look up from his drawing, but Lance can see the corners of his mouth quirk up and knows he’s smirking, as if this were some funny joke. Which it isn’t. Toni and Camilla laugh at it anyway, and Lance frowns. “Maybe! But that doesn’t mean I’m any less mature!”

“Oh right, as if _Lance_ and _mature_ even belong in the same sentence.” Says a new voice.

Lance turns to find Lourdes standing right above him, holding two huge paper grocery bags and looking like she’d just rolled out of bed despite it being early evening. One of the perks of college, Lance supposes- everyone’s too Done and Tired to care about appearances anymore. 

“Okay, first of all, _rude_ ,” Lance snaps, scowling up at his sister with his hands on his hips. “And also, what the actual heck do you have in those bags?”

“Four lemon curd cheesecakes, a box of those vegan pumpkin cookies Melissa likes, and about six rolls of tape. Mom texted me to get some stuff because apparently she completely forgot that Andi doesn’t like cake and needed an emergency backup. Lucky I wasn’t home yet.” Lourdes replies, ignoring his scowl. Her eyes land on Keith and she raises an eyebrow. “Who’s he?”

Lance stops scowling and Keith finally looks up from his drawing, confused and maybe a little bit sheepish. Lance opens his mouth to answer, but Toni and Camilla beat him to the punch.

“He’s Keith!” “He’s Lance’s friend!” “He helped us with our pictures!” “Yeah, he’s uber good!” The two of them talk over each other, as always, but their explanation (if it can even be called that) gets across well enough. Lourdes smiles at Keith and Keith tentatively smiles back, grunting in discomfort as Camilla flips positions on his back to gesture wildly at his drawing. “He’s drawing me as a princess!” She says, beaming from ear to ear like it’s the best news in the whole world.

“Whoa, that’s pretty cool!” Lourdes sets the paper bags to the side and crouches down next to Lance and Toni, peeking at Keith’s drawing and whistling. “And it is uber good, just like you said.”

“Yeah, uber good!” Toni parrots. 

Keith mumbles out a “thank you” and watches Lourdes ruffle both Toni and Camilla’s hair before standing back up again to take the paper bags to the kitchen. Lance watches her go. In any other situation, he would’ve expected her to tease him- because yeah, he’d talked about Keith a lot, even before he’d involved his entire family in his plan. He’s still kind of surprised she _didn’t_ tease him, even a little bit, but the smarter part of him knows it’s because she doesn’t want to make it obvious that everyone in Lance’s family knows who Keith is, even if it wouldn’t be that strange.

“Lance! We need to get the desserts set up, come help get this cheesecake on the table.” Maria yells as she makes her way over to them. “Toni, Camilla, go ahead and put your decorations up.” 

Toni and Camilla scramble to gather all the paper plates strewn about the living room floor. Keith helps them and lets the two kids drag him to the dining room table, showcasing where to put the paper plate art and chattering on about how “the angle has to be perfect” or something similar. Maria reaches Lance’s side and walks with him toward the kitchen where the cheesecakes are.

“It looks like he’s opening up. That’s a good thing.” She says, smiling warmly at the three. Lance knows she’s talking about Keith, and his own gaze falls on the boy. He nods. 

“Have you figured out how you’re going to explain this all to him?” 

“Not yet.”

Lance can feel his mama’s gaze on him, and he just keeps watching Keith. He watches him struggle to get one of the half-bent paper plates to stay neatly upright against a bowl of oranges, watches Toni and Camilla watch him, waiting, watches them applaud when he moves away and the plate doesn’t topple over. Then one of them bumps the table and causes it to fall, and they both start apologizing profusely while Keith looks on like he’s waiting for death’s sweet release.

“You’ve been brave with this plan, mijo.” Maria says, tucking an arm around Lance’s middle. “You know Keith might not react well. He’s probably going to be hurt, if he’s as guarded and private as you tell me. But I think it’s good that you’re here for him. Sounds like he needs it.”

Lance rests his chin on her head. “Yeah, I know he does. I just hope he doesn’t hate me after.”

  
  
  
  


Andi hadn’t been included in any of the plans for helping Keith, since it was all meant to overlap with a Super-Secret-Birthday-Bash Andi couldn’t know about, so the shocked expression on his face when he comes home to a horde of people screaming “happy birthday” at him in varying volumes is entirely genuine. He leaps about a foot in the air and the (empty) plastic cup he’d been holding goes flying across the entryway, almost hitting Sunny Garrett in her smiling face.

“The fuck?!” He yells, half-glaring at everyone.

“Language, mijo!” Maria yells back, though she’s still smiling from ear to ear. She pulls him down to her height and presses a kiss to his cheek. “It’s your birthday! Your surprise birthday party!

Andi makes a face like he’s constipated and then tilts his head, eyebrows going upward in a yeah-that-makes-sense fashion. “I feel like I should have expected this.”

“Well, it’s good that you didn’t, it would have ruined the surprise. Now come on, we got you cheesecake.” Maria pats him on the back and leads him out of the entryway, toward the kitchen. As she passes by where Lance is standing with Hunk and Pidge, she nods to Keith - still stuck in a Toni-Camilla sandwich - then winks and keeps moving. Andi notices the exchange and shoots Lance a confused look. Lance just shrugs. He’ll have to explain everything later.

For now, he has a message to pass on: it’s time to make Keith Kogane a McClain.

(Or, well, get him _used_ to the McClains. Saying they’re gonna _make_ him a McClain is weird. Like he’s gonna marry into the family or something, which is definitely _not_ what’s happening here.)

  
  
  
  


(Later, Lance sees that Keith _does_ become a McClain, as wholly as if he’d been born one.)

  
  
  
  


Dinner is a whirlwind of energy, with the ever-so-embarrassing Happy Birthday song ritual that has Andi’s ears turning red and food being passed around and everyone talking at once with at least four separate conversations going on at any given minute. Everyone’s eager to talk to Keith, and if it were anyone else’s birthday Lance would probably feel terrible for his friend taking the spotlight, but it’s Andi, and one glance at his brother confirms that Andi’s most likely grateful to have the attention on someone else so he can eat his cheesecake in the rare, temporary peace.

Keith is introduced, a little belatedly, to everyone at the party and they all take their turns making conversation with him, asking about his art and how classes are going and if Lance is just as annoying at school as he is at home. Lily and Sunny ask him for an opinion on the pizza they’d all had for dinner, and when he expresses his gratitude, they start on about whether or not he likes cooking or baking. Turns out, he’s never actually baked anything in his life, and the only thing he knows how to cook on his own is mac & cheese. The women look personally offended.

They promise to teach him how to cook at least a few basic dishes sometime, and Lance smiles to himself at the barely-there grin on Keith’s face when Sunny ruffles his hair.

Lance gets roped into a game of Hungry Hungry Hippos by Toni and Camilla, and he loses every round because he’s too distracted, watching Lourdes and Keith where they’re sitting on the floor across the living room. He can’t hear what they’re saying, but by the time the game is over, Keith is bright red and Lourdes is cackling like a Disney villain. Which she is. Lance swears.

Melissa gathers Toni and Camilla and bids everyone goodbye over the sounds of their protests. “We’ll be back tomorrow morning, calm down.” She says, when Camilla starts crying.

“But tio Keith won’t be here tomorrow!”

Lance thinks it’s adorable how attached to Keith the two had become over the course of the evening. Camilla continues to sob and Toni looks like he’s on the edge of crying too, and Melissa sighs, probably bone tired. Lance moves to try and calm them, but then Keith is crouching low to hug the both of them, still looking totally out of his element but perhaps a little less terrified.

“Hey, I’ll come back and visit sometime, okay?” He says. Toni and Camilla nod. “I promise.”

The two siblings cling to Keith a little longer before pulling back and hurrying to their mama, sobs replaced by little baby sniffles. They all wave until the door is closed behind them. 

“So, who’s up for some MarioKart?” Pidge suggests, raising an eyebrow..

“Oh hell yeah! I’m gonna whoop your butt, Holt!” Lourdes easily accepts the challenge.

Pidge, Lourdes, Lance, Keith, and Hunk all end up crowded on the living room couch, trading off controllers whenever one person loses. Both Lance and Lourdes’ legs are in Hunk’s lap, and every once in a while he makes a face at their feet, though he makes no move to push them off. Pidge is sitting with her neck up against Lourdes’ side and the rest of her body flopping over the armrest like a limp noodle, and Keith is squished into the space between Lance and the other end of the couch, hands leaning on the armrest to avoid getting bumped by Lance’s elbows.

It’s mundane, and familiar, and comfortable, and Keith looks so relaxed, and Lance prays that it means his plan is working. He prays that Keith will understand, once everything is explained. He prays that Keith won’t hate him and run away and refuse help like he did before.

He prays that, no matter whether this fantastical plan succeeds or fails, Keith will be _safe_.

  
  
  
  


Lance’s nerves get the better of him, and he gets no higher than seventh place on any round. Pidge and Lourdes wipe the floor with all of them, expectedly, stealing first place from each other over and over until they’ve got about the same amount of wins. Keith does surprisingly well for a MarioKart beginner and Lance finds himself watching Keith more than he’s playing the game. 

Thoughts swim in his head of the worst possible outcome of the night, where Keith calls him a traitor, storms out of the house, and refuses to talk to Lance ever again. He imagines what he’ll say, what he’ll do, what expression will be on his face. He imagines what would happen if Keith just… went with it. If he easily accepted that Lance just wanted to help, and chose to stay. That’s the outcome Lance wants, and he’s more than a little bit terrified of the other possibilities.

He wants Keith to let him help, wants Keith to be safe, wants Keith to be happy. 

Lance’s hasn’t been in the game for several rounds now, and he only half-notices Pidge’s eighth win of the night. He’s staring at Keith’s fourth place ranking when Maria calls for them all to come into the kitchen for cocoa. There’s a lot of shuffling and stumbling and Lourdes almost falls on her face, but they all make it into the kitchen laughing and smiling from ear to ear.

He and Keith are the last ones into the kitchen, and he watches his mama gently tap Keith on the shoulder and usher him back out of the room, handing him a mug of cocoa on the way. And oh fuck, here we go. Lance holds his cup but doesn’t drink. He tunes out the MarioKart character stat debate going on beside him, is too busy watching his mom and Keith. He knows what they must be talking about- knows she must be explaining their plans to Keith. It’s nerve-wracking.

Lance knows the exact moment Keith realizes that everyone who was at that party, aside from Andi, is 100% aware of everything going on in Keith’s life. He knows because Keith’s head snaps around and sharp eyes land on him- glaring, cutting holes in his skull, full of hurt and anger.

This is what Lance was scared of.

Keith turns away, and Lance feels his stomach plummeting into the ground. Does Keith hate him now? What’s he thinking, _of course_ Keith hates him now. How could he have thought everything would work out just fine? They’re not in a damn fairytale- this is _real_ life, with Lance’s _real_ friend, whose secrets he’s spilled to practically everyone he knows. Lance knows his intentions were good, but does that really outweigh the fact that he’s meddling in Keith’s life? They haven’t even been friends for that long. A couple months at most. Lance has no right to tell Keith what to do.

No more than two minutes into Lance’s staring-off-into-space-silent-guilt-parade and movement snaps him out of his thoughts, and Lance watches Keith storm around the living room, collecting his things. No one is talking about MarioKart now. Everyone is watching Keith.

“Keith, mijo, at least let me drive you home. It’s late.” Maria asks, her face full of concern.

Keith shakes his head, avoiding eye contact, and yanks his shoes on. He looks back at Lance and Lance feels like he might crumble under that gaze, because Keith is _fucking pissed_.

The front door opens and Keith leaves, closing the door behind him, and without really thinking, Lance races after him. He’s wearing socks and cargo shorts and it’s past dark in late autumn, and he’s freezing the second he walks out the door. “Keith!” He yells, his feet already sore from running on cold pavement. “Keith, wait!” Keith is fast, and he doesn’t slow down.

Lance catches up and has to stop himself from grabbing at Keith’s arm, because the last thing he wants right now is for Keith to react on impulse and get them in another bad situation.

“Keith, please listen to me! I just wanted to help-”

“Help?!”

Keith whirls around and Lance takes a stumbling step back. Keith is glaring at him, expression clear even in the dim street lighting. He looks small, somehow, his shoulders hunched in and his arms pulled close, hands balled into fists at his sides that Lance can’t help but stare at. 

“Do you really think spilling my private life to everyone you know is gonna help?! What if they tell the police?! What do you think is gonna happen?!” 

“He’s abusing you, Keith!” Lance says, trying not to shout. “What if we can get him arrested?”

“And what if you do?! Lance, the whole reason I haven’t told anyone about this is because when social services finds out, they’re gonna relocate me. Another family, another town- that’s exactly what I’ve been trying to avoid! I finally made friends, I don’t want to leave. But you know what? It doesn’t matter now, because clearly the friends I made don’t care about my fucking privacy.”

Keith’s words sting, like little needles stabbing into his skull, and Lance says nothing. Keith looks angry, and hurt, and there are tears in the corners of his eyes that twinkle in the lamplight. What can Lance say to him? After all that? Keith’s right. Lance fucked up. There’s nothing else to it.

Lance watches Keith turn around and leave. He stands there on the pavement until Keith’s form disappears around a corner and then he stands there a little longer, because he’s… in shock. 

This is what he was afraid of. This was the worst case scenario.

Finally, when Lance’s socked feet are numb and his whole body is shivering, he turns his back on where Keith’s gone and walks back up to the house, where Maria, Lourdes, Hunk, and Pidge are all waiting just inside the door, the same expression of concern mirrored across their faces.

“He left.” Lance says. “I- I fucked up. Really bad.” 

“Oh, mijo, this isn’t your fault. You did what you thought was right.” Maria says, pulling him into her arms. “Sometimes, when we do something out of love, it backfires. That isn’t our fault.”

“I don’t think Keith’s had a lot of love in his life. Maybe he just doesn’t understand.” Hunk adds.

Lance nods against his mama’s shoulder, and she pets his hair for a bit. Once they all discover how freezing cold Lance is, they gather around to smother him with blankets from the couch and Maria makes another round of cocoa for everyone. Conversation is slow and strained, and Lance tries to tune out most of it, but every time he slips into feeling absolutely miserable about hurting Keith, Hunk or Pidge or Lourdes says something funny that has him giggling despite it all.

When the cocoa is gone Maria finally ushers everyone to bed, and Lance ends up in his room with Pidge and Hunk shoved in next to him on the bottom bunk. 

“What should we do now?” Lance asks into the dark, Pidge’s hair tickling his cheek.

Hunk, already half asleep, mumbles into his shoulder. “Just give him space. He’ll come around.”

  
  
  
  


Keith does not come around. At least, not very quickly.

When Lance and Hunk get of the bus on Monday morning, Keith doesn’t wave at them from his bike, doesn’t follow them to where Pidge always waits, doesn’t walk with Lance to maths. 

Keith doesn’t give Lance so much as a side-eye during class, and Lance says nothing. 

It’s like they’ve gone back to the first weeks of school, when Keith was just “that kid who punched me that one time” and Lance was “the one who got in the way.” Keith doesn’t walk with them to their classes, doesn’t sit with them at lunch, doesn’t share his notes with Lance or argue about the probability of aliens with Pidge or let Hunk fuss over his hair like a surrogate mother.

And Lance says nothing. Keith has every right to avoid him- to avoid all of them. Lance feels bad that he’s ruined Pidge and Hunk’s friendship with Keith too, just by getting them involved. But he does his best to stay positive, to not let what happened with Keith drag him down too much.

(He lies. It eats away at him as he tries to sleep, and no matter how many times Hunk or Pidge or his mama try to tell him it’ll all work out, Lance can’t seem to figure out how it possibly could.)

  
  
  
  


Around a week and a half passes before Keith approaches them again, and when he does, he has another black eye over the one that had finally started to heal, a gash on his eyebrow, and a thick ring of bruises around his throat that have Lance’s stomach churning. When he looks Keith in the eye his heart sinks too, because Keith’s expression isn’t angry, or hurt, just… _tired_. 

“Dude, you look like you’ve lost a Kaiju battle or something.” Pidge blurts out. 

Lance blanks, because _what the fuck, Pidge?!_ But then he hears Keith actually _laugh_ \- not quite a happy laugh, more the awkward kind of laugh, the kind of laugh you laugh when it feels like the world’s falling to pieces around you _have_ to laugh because if you don’t you’ll just start crying.

“Yeah, well,” Keith says, his voice cracked and raw. “It definitely feels that way.”

Pidge snorts, and Hunk sighs, and Lance stares at Keith. He should say something. But what? Apologize? He already has, and Keith didn’t take it too well. Should he explain himself? He thinks that might make Keith even angrier- it would sound like Lance thinks Keith is weak and helpless.

But Keith doesn’t want to talk about the failed “rescue mission” half-disguised as Andi’s birthday party. Keith doesn’t mention it at all, just asks, “Can I sit with you guys?”

No one answers. Pidge and Hunk are clearly waiting for Lance to make the call, and Lance appreciates the gesture, even though he doesn’t think it’s earned. Keith waits, not mentioning the fight they had or how Lance betrayed him or even anything more about his wounds. Keith waits, watching Lance watch him, and Lance thinks that Keith’s question never needed to be asked.

“Of course you can.”

  
  
  
  


For the first time in what feels like an eternity, they’re all together, joking and laughing and poking fun at each other, just like friends should. Keith is smiling, and laughing, and Lance is happy. 

When they all get out of class at the end of the day, Keith is waiting for them in the main hallway. He seems nervous, more nervous than he had at lunch, but he debates with Pidge the logic or not-logic of a comic series they apparently both read and Lance decides not to mention it. Hunk joins in on their debate once he has a better picture of the context and Lance listens with a laugh, not really understanding any of it but enjoying the ridiculous things they use to justify their side.

They all say hi to Mrs. Holt and wave dramatically at Pidge as their stationwagon pulls out of the parking lot, and Keith falls behind as Lance and Hunk make for their bus. Hunk goes on ahead with a playful nudge at both of them and Lance pauses, watches Keith, tries not fidget.

Keith looks at him and his expression is sad, almost desperate. “Lance, I’m really sorry about the other night. You didn’t deserve to get yelled at. You were just trying to help me, and I didn’t want to admit I needed help. I just- I’m not used to people being nice to me. It caught me off guard, still does, and I think I didn’t know how to cope with your family treating me like I’m… one of them. So I picked the first excuse I could to get mad and I treated you like actual shit. I’m really sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize, you had every reason to get mad-” Lance starts.

“No, I really didn’t!” Keith interrupts him, quietly catching himself with a whispered apology. “You wanted to help me, and you did what you thought would help. You told people you trusted and I got mad at you for it. That’s not fair. It’s not fair for me to reject you when you’re just trying to be a good friend. I think I understand what that means now, y’know. Being someone’s friend.”

Lance finds himself smiling, because this is what he wanted Keith to understand- that he has friends, people who love him and care about him and want him to be safe. He wanted Keith to understand that he has people who want to help him. People that _will_ help him, if he asks.

“Keith,” Lance says, holding a hand out for Keith to take, if he wants. “Wanna come to my house tonight? You _did_ promise you’d visit Toni and Camilla again sometime.”

Keith stares at him for a moment, and Lance wonders if maybe he should have said more, if he should explain more of his process or how much his family loves Keith or apologize again, even though Keith doesn’t seem to think he’s at fault. He wonders if this is too forward, asking him to come over again like it’s not big deal. He wonders if Keith will say yes after all that’s happened.

Keith smiles, shy and small and real. He takes Lance’s hand, and says, “Yes, please.”

  
  
  
  


That night, when Lance and Keith are snuggled up in blankets on different bunks in Lance’s bed, Lance explains to Keith every aspect of his plans to get Keith into a safer place.

Keith listens, doesn’t say anything until Lance is finished. A heavy silence hangs between them.

“How many people were involved?” He asks.

Lance counts on his fingers. “Well, my whole family, aside from like, Toni and Camilla. And Andi, since we couldn’t tell him about the party. Hunk’s moms, Hunk and Pidge, Pidge’s parents- we had backup plans in case you’d rather stay with Pidge or Hunk than me. So… ten people?”

That heavy silence falls again, and Lance finds himself fidgeting, anxious and impatient. He picks at hanging threads from the mattress above him, fiddles with the hem of his blanket, and waits.

Finally, a reply. “That’s a lot of people.”

“Yeah.”

“That means I’m important to you, doesn’t it?”

Lance blanks, for a second, then smiles from ear to ear, because _yes_ , Keith finally gets it. “Hell yeah you’re important to me, dude! You’re one of my best friends now! That makes you a VIP.”

Lance hears Keith’s soft, raspy laugh echo in the darkness of the room. “Sweet.” 

  
  
  
  


Just like how Keith became a part of Lance’s little friend group in no time at all, Keith becomes a part of the McClain family pretty much within the span of a single night. 

No one so much as bats and eyelash when Keith joins them at the breakfast table the morning after his first night staying over, and in the week since, he’s had personalized allergy-free lunches made for him by Maria, had an hour long Nicolas Sparks debate with Andi, and had his makeup done by Melissa, Lourdes, and Toni and Camilla, all on separate occasions. 

(And yes, Lance forced his mama to take pictures on each of those separate occasions.)

Maria drives them to and from school, picking up Hunk along the way most days. She takes him and Keith out to buy coats and new jeans, because Keith didn’t bring a whole lot with him when he left home and he doesn’t actually have a good winter coat, which is sacrilege in her eyes. 

Lance offers up his own bedroom to share with Keith, and at first he’s nervous. He’s always had a hard time sleeping with others in the room, because he’s a restless sleeper. He moves around a lot. He makes noise. Growing up, Andi constantly complained about being kept up by Lance shaking the bed, until finally Melissa moved out and Lourdes offered to share with him. 

Keith? Keith does not complain. Keith sleeps like a _rock_. It usually takes Lance a good while to fall asleep, even with his earbuds in playing ocean songs and all possible light blocked out by an eye mask. Keith, however, simply lays down and passes out, and does not move until he wakes.

 _It’s almost like we were meant to be_ , Lance thinks. The sentiment makes him giggle.

Everyone adores Keith, dotes on him and teases him and treats him like he’s been a part of the household from the very beginning. Lance can’t help but wish that Keith never has to leave. 

  
  
  
  


(Lance worries. He worries _so much_ . When they turn onto the main hall in school one day and Keith’s foster dad is standing there, talking to a teacher, and Keith looks so pale and small and scared, Lance grabs his arm and guides him to another exit, Hunk doing his best to calm Keith and Pidge watching behind them like a hawk watching for a potential predator. Keith stays home from then on and Maria lets him. And Lance _worries._ How long, exactly, can all of this last?)

  
  
  
  


“Is Toni gonna die?” 

Lance looks at Camilla and resists the urge to smile, because despite the nature of her question, she doesn’t seem even the slightest bit concerned for her brother’s well-being. 

“No, Camilla, he just has the flu. He’s not gonna die.” He says, patting her on the back.

Camilla turns and glares at him for making her stumble and Lance has to hide his smile behind a hand. She finishes off the braid she’s doing in Keith’s hair and turns to Lance, holding it out in his direction with the most begrudging expression a five-year-old can have. She’s Melissa’s kid, that’s for damn sure. Lance takes the end of the braid and ties off the elastic for her.

“All done! Look, look, look!” Camilla says with sudden enthusiasm, shoving a plastic play mirror into Keith’s hands so he can see the _masterpiece_ that is his new hairdo.

Camilla has spent a good fifteen or twenty minutes twisting three smaller braids into one gigantic plait that’s about as wide as Keith’s head, with bumps at different angles and crooked chunks of braid and little hairs that didn’t quite fit into the plaits sticking out every which way. It looks terrible, Lance thinks, but in the cute, learning-curve kind of way that can only really be achieved when you have a five-year-old who has only ever done the hair of dolls decide to give you a makeover.

Lance fully expects Keith’s face to contort into something that portrays how much Camilla might need to practice, but Keith just smiles, turning the mirror this way and that to get a view of every angle he possibly can. He’s beaming, and Camilla is beaming, and Lance fucking _giggles_.

How can a guy who didn’t know what a _fist bump_ was a few months ago be so good with kids?!

“It’s amazing, Camilla,” Keith says, handing her back the mirror and feeling along the plaits with his fingers. “I love it. Thank you.”

Camilla squeals and throws her arms around Keith, probably dislodging part of the braid as she jumps up and down in her excitement. Keith has spent long enough in the McClain house to be very much used to Toni and Camilla’s boundless energy, and he just laughs, a soft, comfortable laugh, gently patting the braid back into place (still crooked, but a little better) when Camilla stills.The three of them are all bundled up in late-autumn-early-winter-weather clothes, sat outside on the front walk to avoid contracting the flu from Toni and getting sick themselves. Lance is sat on the steps of the porch with his jacket pulled up as far as it’ll get on around his neck, while Keith and Camilla are on the walkway with a few blankets between their butts and freezing concrete.

It’s been ten days since Keith started staying at the McClain house, three days since he stopped attending school, and Lance feels an ache in his stomach, like their luck is going to run out soon.

An unfamiliar car pulls into the driveway.

At first, Lance eyes the car with vacant curiosity. Their house is at the dead-end of a street and it isn’t uncommon for their driveway to be used as a turn-around for lost drivers. 

One glance in Keith’s direction and Lance instantly knows that something is very, _very_ wrong.

Keith looks scared. His face is ashen, eyes blown wide, hands gripping the blanket beneath him like a lifeline even as he scoots in front of Camilla almost on instinct. Lance is on his feet and moving toward them before the car door can open. And when it does, all hell breaks loose.

“Where the _fuck_ have you been?!” The man shouts, in a voice Lance barely recognizes from that night so long ago. “You fucking ran off for an entire week, you think you have the right?!” 

Lance doesn’t know what to do, doesn’t know what to say, it’s like a horror movie is happening in front of him. The man shoots out a hand and grabs at Keith’s hair like a murderous villain, lifting him off the ground and dragging him a good few feet forward, as if Keith weighed nothing at all. 

“Get off, asshole!” Keith shouts, kicking at the man and shoving at his hand, trying to dislodge the fingers tangled in his hair. “Fucking let go!” 

Without thinking, Lance lunges for Keith and pushes at the man’s hands, shouting for him to let the fuck go and fuck off, what right does he have to treat Keith like this? Camilla is wailing and Keith is swearing and Lance is shouting and the man is yelling at Keith for being a brat and disobeying curfew, what a fucking idiot, how dare he. If there was a neighborhood watch, surely someone would have called the cops by now, with all the noise they’re making.

Lance takes an elbow to the face and stumbles, falling on his ass and catching himself with one hand that he’ll definitely be picking rocks out of with tweezers later. Keith is screaming his name and then screaming curses at the world. Keith’s foster dad kicks the feet out from under him and Lance watches Keith get manhandled, kicking and scratching and biting, toward the man’s car.

Lance climbs back onto his feet and a door opens, but not a car door- the front door of the house is thrown open, and Lance doesn’t think he’s ever been so grateful to see his dad’s face. 

John McClain, Captain of Lions Beach Police Station, walks out like the eye of a storm, calm and collected. He lifts one hand out at Lance as a cue to stay right where he is and Lance does stay. He hears Camilla’s cries soften and turns to find his mother in the doorway, one arm cradling a coughing Toni and the other holding Camilla close, both kids’ faces pressed up against her and shielded from the drama. When she catches Lance’s gaze, she smiles, small but reassuring.

“Let him go and put your hands up!” John demands, loud and stern.

Keith’s foster father pauses, but only to glare at John as if he were the scum of the Earth. “Why the hell should I listen to you? You kidnap my kid and then think you can order me around?!”

John pulls out his badge, and the man suddenly looks very, very scared. He drops Keith instantly.

Keith scrambles to his feet and runs for the house, grabbing at Maria’s sleeve as soon as he’s near. Lance picks up Camilla so Maria has a free arm to hug Keith. He can feel Keith shaking, can hear his heavy breathing, but his eyes refuse to leave his dad and the scene before them.

“John Doe, you are under arrest for trespassing and assault. You have the right to remain silent.” John pins the man up against his own car and handcuffs him. There’s a police siren in the distance. “If you give up that right, anything you say can and will be held against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford one, one will be provided for you…”

A police car pulls up to the driveway just as John is finished, and out climbs two officers Lance vaguely recognizes, probably from some potluck or another. The two new officers take over and Keith’s foster father disappears into the police car. A minute later, an ambulance pulls up.

“Lance, mijo, take Toni for me, okay?” 

Lance sets Camilla down and takes Toni, who is fast asleep despite the chaos. Maria kisses all three of them on the head before wrapping both arms around Keith and starting down the steps. 

“I called Melissa and Lourdes, they’ll be home soon as they can be. I need you to stay here for a little while, okay? Take care of Toni and Camilla?” Maria says, her smile strained.

 _‘Why can’t we go with you?’_ Lance wants to ask. But he knows why. There’s no telling how long it will take to sort out everything that’s just happened, no telling what will happen to Keith or if they’ll get in trouble for harboring a runaway or- or- Lance shoves aside thoughts of Keith’s foster dad getting off scot-free and Keith having to go back to him. His parents will never let that happen. 

So Lance just nods, tries his best to smile, and stays. Keith peeks out around Maria as they walk toward the ambulance and Lance doesn’t know what to say. So he says nothing, just watches as his parents disappear down the road, and prays that Keith will be with them when they return.

  
  
  
  


Lance takes Toni back to bed in the living room and Camilla helps him lock up every window and door in the house. He makes it into a game and manages to win a bit of laughter from her, which he counts as a feat. But as soon as they’ve settled in the living room next to a sleeping Toni, she releases all her questions on him in rapid succession. Where did nana and papa go? Why did the big truck take Keith away? Who was that man? Why was he being so mean to Keith?

Lance hugs her close and tries to explain. “You know how the bad guys in movies can be really mean to the heroes, and at the end the heroes beat the bad guys in a fight?” Camilla nods. “Well, that man that hurt Keith was a bad guy. Papa’s at the police station to make sure than man gets in trouble for being mean, and nana’s at the hospital to make sure Keith’s okay. That’s where the big truck took him- it’s an ambulance, they come rescue people who are hurt and heal them.”

Camilla nods, taking his cobbled-together explanation as fact. “When will tio Keith come home?” 

Lance gives her a shaky smile. “Soon.”

Half an hour after the first responders have come and gone, Lourdes gets home, and Lance tells her everything their mama didn’t have time to mention. Camilla is fast asleep and when Lourdes pulls Lance into her arms, he cries, because he’s worried. He lets out all the emotions he’s been holding back, because he couldn’t bear to cry in front of Camilla and make her more scared.

John calls not long after Lourdes gets home to say that Keith’s foster father is in holding and that the specifics of the arrest will be handled by other officers, and that he’s heading to the hospital to check on Maria and Keith. John tells them not to worry, that everything is going to work out.

(Lance still worries, but he forces himself not to focus on it, because John McClain is not a liar)

Melissa gets home after the call, Andi gets home an hour after that, and they wait together in the living room, huddled like wolf pups waiting for their mother to return with food for the winter. Toni and Camilla wake up and demand movie time, and three episodes of Tangled: The Series later, they’re asleep again, along with Lourdes and Andi, who are both exhausted from their days.

Lance is exhausted too, body and soul, but he can’t find it in himself to sleep. His mind is going a mile a minute with thoughts of Keith and their parents and restraining orders and relocations and _what if Lance could track down Keith’s brother?_ His fingers fidget with whatever they touch and Lance fights the urge to text Hunk or Pidge for help, because he’s not sure if he should share yet. What kind of rules are there in sharing this kind of thing? Would he get in trouble for telling them?

“I can hear you overthinking from all the way over here, Lancey-Lance.” Melissa says, using an old nickname that he hasn’t heard from her in _years_. “Do I have to ask what’s on your mind?”

Lance looks around Lourdes and Camilla’s sleeping forms between them, locks onto Melissa’s calm gaze, so much like their mama’s. “I just… I can’t stop thinking about what’ll happen to Keith. What if mama and dad get in trouble for letting him stay here? What if social services take him to some other family in some other town and I never get to see him anymore?”

“Lance, Keith ran away from a man who was abusing him. I don’t think mama and dad could get in trouble for protecting him even if dad _wasn’t_ a police Captain. They’ll fight for Keith if they have to, you know that. And besides, they have a little trick up their sleeve they haven’t told you yet.”

Lance narrows his eyes at her. “What kind of trick?”

  
  
  
  


Five and a half hours. Keith’s ER checkup takes five and a half hours. Lourdes is awake again and doing homework in the dining room, Melissa is heating late-night leftover fried rice, and Andi is still passed out in the living room with Toni and Camilla. Lance is sat across the table from his sister, trying to focus on his own homework, but he has to keep reading the same sentences over and over again because his brain is too distracted to comprehend the material.

Lights stream through cracks in the dining room curtains and there’s the sound of an engine, of car doors opening and closing, of footsteps on the stone walkway and hushed voices outside.

Lance is on his feet in seconds and heading for the front door, Lourdes at his heels. He hears her talking to Andi, probably trying to wake him up, hears Toni and Camilla’s still-sleepy voices, but he doesn’t wait. He pulls the door open and there are his parents, coming up the steps.

Keith is wedged between them, a duffel bag in his arms. He’s smiling.

Everything in Lance wants to throw himself at Keith and squeeze his brains out in a hug, but he has no idea how injured Keith might be, so instead he throws himself at his mama and reaches an arm carefully around Keith to pull him closer. Keith comes willingly and Lance feels fingers in his jacket, holding tight. It doesn’t take long for everyone else who’s awake to join the hug.

“I’m fine, really.” Keith says in Lance’s ear, answering the question he hasn’t even asked yet.

Lance deflates, tension flowing out of him. Keith is okay. Keith is home. The hug huddle starts to disperse and Lance is shoved aside by Camilla, who tackles Keith ‘round the middle and sobs into his coat. Maria pulls Lance closer and kisses him on the cheek, hands in his hair, and Lance leans into her with a smile even as his eyes stay on Keith and Camilla.

Keith drops the duffel bag onto the porch and kneels to Camilla’s height, hugging her back. She sobs a bit more and everyone starts to gravitate back into the house, but Lance stays, watching.

“That scary man came and hurt you and then the hospital people took you away-” Camilla says between hiccups, one hand wiping tears while the other clings to Keith’s jacket with an iron grip. “And Lance said you would be home soon but then it was a _really long time_ and I missed you!”

Keith smiles, and Lance swears there are tears in his eyes. “I missed you too. All of you.”

  
  
  
  


No one asks for a full story from John and Maria McClain until Camilla has been detached from Keith’s torso and put to sleep again, Melissa having made the decision to simply stay the night rather than try and drive home. Toni is balled up in one of the armchairs and Camilla is splayed across the fold-out couch in the living room, dead to the world despite her earlier energy.

Andi is half-asleep and groggy but he lets Lourdes pull him into the dining room and sit him down to hear the news of the night. Lance sits with his chair right up next to Keith’s, their shoulders up against each other, the steam from their cups of tea mixing, their fingers just a few inches apart.

“So, there’s a little something we didn’t tell everyone while we were making plans for the party, simply because we weren’t sure how it would work out if needed. But,” Maria explains. “when we were thinking of ways to truly help Keith, Melissa suggested we apply to be emergency foster parents. That would mean if a foster child nearby was displaced, they would be brought here, Keith included. And your father was able to find out that there are no other such families nearby.”

“Which means that when Keith was taken into social service custody, he was automatically put into your custody after the hospital cleared him, right?” Lourdes asks, beaming.

Maria nods, and Lance wants to cry, because his parents are _amazing_ , so beautifully _amazing_.

“As foster parents, we will only have custody of Keith until a family chooses to adopt him. And you guys seem to enjoy having him around so we talked to social services about how we could go about adopting Keith to be a part of our family, permanently.” John starts, expression smug as he drags out his sentences. Lance and his siblings are hanging onto every word. “Of course, we asked Keith first if he would like to stay, and, well, you wanna tell them what you said, Keith?”

All eyes lock onto Keith and he shrinks under their gazes at first, clearly exhausted and ready to sleep and perhaps still adjusting to having siblings, but then he smiles, brighter than Lance has ever seen him smile, and Lance’s entire body seems to heat up. “I said yes.”

Lourdes starts to cheer and Andi whacks her upside the head, reminding her that there are kids asleep in the next room over. Lance wraps his arms around Keith and Lourdes is pouncing onto them just seconds later. Keith melts into their hug and Lance couldn’t possibly be happier.

If someone had told fourteen-year-old Lance that he’d end up with _Keith Kogane_ as a brother in under a year, he never would’ve believed them, but right now? Being with Keith just feels _right_.

✿ **_First Ending, Fin._ ** ✿ 

  
  
  
  


“What the fuck do you mean, we missed your birthday?!” Pidge yells, enraged. “You mean your birthday was like, two weeks after we all became friends, and you never told us?! _Dude!_ ”

“I’ve never celebrated my birthday before, how was I supposed to know it was important? It’s not even my actual birthday anyways, just the day I was abandoned.” Keith snaps back.

Pidge reels back but only for a moment, narrowing her eyes at Keith with a pout. “Okay fair.”

The group is eating lunch inside the cafeteria for once, their normal spot being damp with early December rain. They’ve got less than a week before winter break starts and the four of them are currently despairing over the fact Keith’s birthday was apparently a week after they all met. 

“Well, maybe we can still do something? It might be a little late, but it’s better than nothing.” Hunk says. Lance nods. “Besides, you’re a McClain now. And the McClains are _great_ at parties.”

Lance and Keith snort in tandem, because they know- there have been two more birthday parties since Andi’s, and both had hours upon hours of loving setup behind them. The McClain family goes big or goes home. Hunk knows that, has been a part of that mindset for as long as either he or Lance can remember, and he chuckles with them, leaving Pidge to roll her eyes. 

Someone’s yelling in the distance and Pidge shoots a glare down the hall in the direction of it. “I forgot to tell you guys, Matt’s bringing his college roommate home for Christmas break.”

“Oh, I remember you mentioning it.” Lance says, sucking down the last of his Capri Sun.

“Yeah, well, apparently Matt cried over the phone because his roommate doesn’t have a family to spend the break with, so mom told him to invite the guy to spend the holidays with us.” There’s more yelling and Pidge frowns. “I’ve only heard stories about him so far, but he seems cool.”

“What’s he like?” 

“He’s in the same major as Matt, so he’s an astrophysics nerd. Matt has a total crush on him so I know he’s buff as shit and he has this cool scar over his nose, and he’s _Japanese_ , so I’m pretty sure Matt’s used anime puns. Apparently he talks in his sleep.” Pidge pauses, clearly thinking up more tidbits. “His name’s Takashi but Matt says everyone in their classes calls him Shiro-”

“Wait, _Shiro_? Takashi Shirogane?” Keith blurts out. Lance’s jaw drops- he remembers the name.

Pidge tilts her head at Keith. “Yeah, do you know-”

A high-pitched scream cuts through their conversation and everyone whips around to look at the origin of the sound. It’s a young girl Lance recognizes from his English class, Rom or Roxy or Ro or something similar. But Lance’s eyes don’t stay on her for long. Because there’s a gun.

  
  
  
  


(If you had told eighth-grade-Lance-McClain that his first thought, when caught in one of the most terrifying situations he could have possibly imagined, would be “what would Keith do?” …)

  
  
  
  


What would Keith do.

Lance knows Keith. Lance _knows_ Keith. Knows how determined he is, knows how protective he is, knows how strong he is and how quick he is to take action, knows how many fights he’s been in- knows he came out on top in every single one, despite whatever consequences followed.

Lance knows if Keith were here, and he hopes to God Keith isn’t, that he would charge the kid holding a gun and firing on people Lance has known most of his life.

Lance can’t charge the kid holding a gun. He’ll die if he charges the kid holding a gun. He doesn’t want to die to the kid holding a gun. So he searches for the next best thing and instantly his eyes land on Romelle, the girl who screamed whose name he suddenly remembers clear as day.

She’s crumpled and crying and only a few feet away, and Lance drops to the ground, doesn’t let his eyes leave hers as she watches him come closer and closer until his hand touches hers.

She looks up at Lance and Lance smiles a shaky smile, fumbles for reassuring words. 

She looks up at him and starts wailing.

Lance looks up, at the shadow behind him, and there’s the gun, inches away from his temple.

  
  
  
  


Keith can’t breathe. 

He sits on Lance’s bunk, huddled in a corner, staring at nothing. His eyes are rubbed raw and he can’t bear to move from his spot, can’t bear to leave the room, can’t bear to see Lance’s family - _his_ family, now. It hurts too much to see the tear lines on their cheeks, the bags under their eyes.

So he stays on the bed, curled in Lance’s jacket that still has faded bloodstains on the sleeve.

❀ **_Second Ending, Fin._ ** ❀

**Author's Note:**

> _“...but more than that, I never thought you’d be taken away.”_
> 
> “Cold” by Jeff & Casey Lee Williams ( [X](https://youtu.be/vgAQzPK53Rg) )
> 
> To anyone who came here from the opening notes, about the trigger warning: the last scenes include a school shooting. I took inspiration from the movie Remember Me, and decided that a good way to make this angst fic particularly Angsty is to pop a harsh end out of… nowhere. If something like that is uncomfortable for you to read, you can totally stop before those scenes! I put a marker where the “happy ending” is so you can stop there if you like.
> 
> Edit: Here is the art for this fic, done by the wonderful [caffeinepatches](https://caffeinepatches.tumblr.com/post/189810730740/heres-another-contribution-i-did-for)! They encouraged me a lot while this fic was being written and I'm glad to have been partnered with them for the Angst Bang this year. Thank you for the support friend! Check out their art and blog and give them some love, y'all.


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